Charity Lemonade Stand

Last Saturday Incredi-Boy and his sweet little friend ran a lemonade stand in our front yard for a very worthy cause! Our small group families are raising funds to purchase athletic equipment for the children of Mtendere Village in Malawi, Africa.

We’ve encouraged the kids in the group to think of extra jobs they could do, or little fundraisers of their own to help contribute. Incredi-Boy’s friend and her family are also in our small group, and they live a few doors down from us, so a neighborhood lemonade sale seemed to be an ideal project for them to collaborate on.

Both of our families sponsor children at Mtendere, so this cause is near and dear to our hearts. In fact, the other mama has even traveled to their village for medical missions.

When we saw an opportunity to go ahead and do it last weekend, we threw it together pretty quickly. I looked through my party supplies (all leftover from past parties) and texted the other mama to tell her we didn’t need to buy anything except ice and lemonade ingredients. It would seem pretty silly anyway to spend a fortune on a lemonade stand that’s meant to be a fundraiser. Right?

For the lemonade, I used the simple recipe from the bottle of the Real Lemon brand of lemon juice. I had some Country Time mix on standby to fill in with as needed. Now I’m no lemonade snob at all, but I will say that apparently it paid off to make it from the Real Lemon recipe because people actually came back and bought more, saying it was the real deal. And I didn’t even have to squeeze one lemon!

We had mini bottles of bubbles leftover from birthday parties, so we put them in a basket to hand out free to any children that came along. That was just a fun little extra! And our little lemonade sellers sometimes grabbed a bottle to blow while waiving at drivers passing by. Great marketing strategy!

We sold the lemonade for $1 a cup, and also put out a can for extra donations. Several people, seeing that it was a fundraiser, gave the children a $5 bill and only asked for one or two cups of lemonade, telling them to keep the change. We were so touched at how generous our neighbors were!! They were even cheering our kids on for doing a good work!

The kids started that morning making signs and decorations for the table. For an easy craft they could display above the lemonade stand, I had lemons outlined in pencil on canvases for them to paint, and a ribbon already glued on as a hanger.

They eagerly went to work!

The finished product was something cute to hang above the lemonade stand, but also a fun summer decoration they could keep and remember the day by.

Then they moved on to signs, and they working so seriously and enthusiastically! It was really cute to watch!

Their signs just made me smile!

As soon as they finished their signs, we set up the table and they went straight to work! There was no stopping them! They could not wait to get out there and wave people down.

It was a very hot day, which certainly helped sales! We had the lemonade stand in the shade so they could take breaks and get out of the sun.

I was so thankful for that big shady crepe myrtle!!!

I told them their chairs were their “pop-up chairs”, so they could sit in the shade until a car was coming, and then they had to “pop-up” to go wave their sign.

As the  afternoon continued, their earlier enthusiasm did start to wane a bit, so I offered them incentives for each hour, like a glass of lemonade or a popsicle (I had them guzzling water bottles all day). And during the slow times, we played games while waiting. When complaints were made about being tired and hot, we talked about how our Malawi friends endure hot days and hard work every day, and what an encouragement the gift of athletic equipment would be to the children there. Those conversations seemed to really hit home to them and motivate them to keep going.

As we started the last hour, I let them take a bike and scooter break. They decided that next time they would just tie their signs onto their bikes for advertising. Cute!

These kids were champs throughout the whole day, and we were soooo proud of them! We were also very thankful to our wonderful neighbors who supported the cause and gave so generously. Several drove over as soon as they saw the announcement on the neighborhood page, and others came to a sudden halt when they saw the kids waving to them with their signs. Some came back a second time, and we got so tickled when the whole neighborhood seemed to all be driving around with their big yellow cups!  One woman stopped and said, “My mother told me to never pass a lemonade stand without stopping to buy some!”

I really debated over whether or not to make this post because I didn’t want to appear to be bragging on a good deed done. But the lesson here isn’t what a great thing the children did, but what GOD did!!  He calls us to be good stewards of what He’s given us, and use it for His glory to help others. All that these children had to put forth was some lemonade, signs, leftover party supplies, and an afternoon in the sun. A small contribution on their part that God multiplied to an $80 total for the children of Mtendere!! They cheered so excitedly over the final total and we’ve been thanking God ever since then!

Two of our small group friends, who also live in the area, were not able to join us, so we’re already planning another one with them. But this next one will have one change to it. It will be free lemonade! It was so great to see the kindness of our neighbors, that we’re planning a “thank you” lemonade stand to show our appreciation for everyone’s support!